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Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1987) 15:011 I Intrada 1:36

2 II Recitativo e Valse 2:26

3 III Capriccioso 1:58

4 V Grave 2:51

5 V Moto perpetuo 2:17

6 VI Aria e Ciacona 3:53

Countdown: Suite for Oboe and Harp (1990) 13:497 I Salute for a Royal Birthday (Counting candles) 3:38

8 II Nocturne (Counting sheep) 3:11

9 III Burlesque (Counting money) 3:26

10 IV Envoi (Counting your blessings) 3:34

Sonata for Cor Anglais and Piano (1967) 14:4511 I Andante con moto 4:33

12 II Vivace 2:44

13 III Poco adagio 4:00

14 IV Allegro non tanto 3:28

Three Winter Songs for Soprano with Oboe and Piano (1972) 15:2715 No. 1 Birds in Winter 5:00

16 No. 2 Winter the Huntsman 5:52

17 No. 3 February 4:35

STEPHEN DODGSON Chamber Music, Volume Three: Music for Oboe

TT 73:43

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Suite in C minor for oboe and piano (1957) 14:4118 I Prelude 2:28

19 II Arabesque 2:33

20 III Scherzino 2:27

21 IV Romance 4:06

22 V Finale 3:07

James Turnbull, oboeLibby Burgess, piano 1 – 6 11–22

Eleanor Turner, harp 7 – 10

Robyn Allegra Parton, soprano 15– 17

TT 73:43 FIRST RecoRdInGS

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Stephen Dodgson came from an artistic family: the son of the painter and art-teacher John Dodgson (1890–1969), he was born in Chelsea on 17 March 1924. After a public-school education at Berkhamsted School and Stowe, he was conscripted and soon found himself in the Royal Navy on Atlantic patrols, thereafter enjoying a long and productive musical life. He married the harpsichordist Jane Clark in 1959, and died in Barnes on 13 April 2013. Over his sixty-year career he amassed a substantial catalogue. Although his huge output for guitar has tended to pigeonhole him as a specialist, Dodgson composed music in most forms, and for many other instruments – works then championed by a good number of appreciative players.

Immediately after the war he studied composition with Bernard Stevens, keeping body and soul together with short-lived teaching posts. It was April 1947 before he entered the Royal College of Music, where his first study was horn; his professor was the orchestral horn-player Frank Probyn, at the time of the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. But Dodgson’s main interest was composition, which he studied with R. O. Morris and Patrick Hadley, winning a Cobbett prize for a Fantasy String Quartet while still a student. Thanks to an Octavia Travelling Fellowship, after he left the College in July 1949 he was able to travel to Italy.

Dodgson’s was a typical portfolio musical career, the central thread of which was teaching. Here his activities were largely focused on the Royal College of Music, starting in the Junior Department before eventually becoming professor of composition and theory. He was made an FRCM in 1981. A second strand of his musical life revolved around the BBC, and he was probably best-known to the

STEPHEN DODGSON – CHAMBER MUSIC, VOLUME THREE: MUSIC FOR OBOEby Lewis Foreman

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wider public as a familiar voice on the Third Programme/Radio 3, not least on Record Review. Throughout this time he maintained a constant output of new music, most of it commissioned for one occasion or another, usually with a specific artist in mind. He had an interest for the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the movement-structures of many of his chamber works reflect this enthusiasm.

There were a number of early successes that have since been forgotten. In 1949, for example, he won a Royal Philharmonic Society prize for a set of orchestral variations, a success repeated in 1953 with a Symphony in E flat. Notable for its slow movement, a ‘romantically inclined’ Passacaglia, the Symphony had a Patron’s Fund rehearsal in 1952 and was performed in January 1954. Later that year a public rehearsal by the London Symphony Orchestra (under the aegis of the Society for the Promotion of New Music) at the Royal Festival Hall gave Dodgson’s ‘romantic overture’ Taras Bulba a well-received airing. He was soon attracting commissions for chamber and instrumental music, of which he produced a generous amount.

There was also incidental music for a succession of BBC drama productions. Dodgson enjoyed a sympathetic collaboration with the producer Raymond Raikes, who commissioned scores for more than a dozen plays, including Congreve’s Love for Love (1965) and The Old Bachelor (1966), George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem (1961), Marivaux’s comedy The Legacy (1965) and Plautus’ Mostellaria (1969). His music for John Ford’s Perkin Warbeck (1970) was distinguished by David Munrow’s recorder-playing.

The Suite in C minor for oboe and piano dates from 1957 and is thus the earliest piece in this survey of Dodgson’s music for oboe. It was written for Tony Danby (oboe) and Geoffrey Connah (piano), who gave the first performance in a BBC broadcast on 1 December 1957. The Suite, which falls into five short movements, succeeds by its variety and compactness. The short Prelude (Andante liberamente ed espressivo) 18 opens in pastoral mood before briefly assuming a punchier character at the marking fortissimo. A brief link for the pianist leads back to a reminiscence of the opening oboe theme in an eight-bar coda. The idyllic Arabesque (Allegretto) 19 is essentially in two parts, separated by a miniature oboe cadenza in free time before the opening returns. The

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third movement, a Scherzino (Allegro) 20 , starts in a bucolic (although very respectable)mood before a swaggering, bluesy tune emerges. The molto espressivo, songful fourth movement, Romance (Andante) 21 , is the longest in the Suite but also the simplest. It is followed by a rhythmic, dancing 6

8 finale, marked Vivacissimo. A quiet interlude – effectively the second subject – leads to the return of the rhythmic treatment. A second interlude and a throw-away, headlong gesture of dismissal comes as alternating bars in 58, 68 and 78 propel the music to its bouncy close.

The Sonata for Cor Anglais and Piano dates from ten years later. Dodgson’s many instrumental works were written for a wide range of specific instruments, and thus for specific players, some of whom became important contributors to the repertoire of their instruments. Nowhere is this truer than of Catherine Smith, who commissioned this sonata in 1967. She gave the first performance in June 1967 with Valerie Pardon (piano) at the Richmond-on-Thames Festival. Four years later, on 5 November 1971, with Paul Hamburger at the piano, she gave the first broadcast performance, on BBC Radio Three.

In four movements, the Sonata for Cor Anglais and Piano is one of Dodgson’s most substantial chamber works. The widely spaced cor anglais part, with its recurring repeated four-note motif in the opening Andante con moto 11 , gives it an elegiac feeling characteristic of the instrument – but the cor anglais can also be agile and Dodgson emphasises the contrast in the succeeding Vivace 12 , with headlong running quavers in both instruments, the regular 3

4 of the movement being interrupted three times by short passages of 94. The character of the eloquent short Poco adagio slow movement 13 is underlined by a framing lyrical phrase, which rises from low C to a high G and falls an octave to G. The striking Allegro non tanto finale 14 opens with a headlong, pressing rhythmic moto perpetuo, which is soon contrasted with the lyrical second subject. The interplay of these two contrasted ideas gives the cor anglais many opportunities for display.

Dodgson’s songs and other vocal works have notable personality. A wide love of poetry underpinned his word-setting. His large corpus of works for voice, often written

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third movement, a Scherzino (Allegro) 20 , starts in a bucolic (although very respectable)mood before a swaggering, bluesy tune emerges. The molto espressivo, songful fourth movement, Romance (Andante) 21 , is the longest in the Suite but also the simplest. It is followed by a rhythmic, dancing 6

8 finale, marked Vivacissimo. A quiet interlude – effectively the second subject – leads to the return of the rhythmic treatment. A second interlude and a throw-away, headlong gesture of dismissal comes as alternating bars in 58, 68 and 78 propel the music to its bouncy close.

The Sonata for Cor Anglais and Piano dates from ten years later. Dodgson’s many instrumental works were written for a wide range of specific instruments, and thus for specific players, some of whom became important contributors to the repertoire of their instruments. Nowhere is this truer than of Catherine Smith, who commissioned this sonata in 1967. She gave the first performance in June 1967 with Valerie Pardon (piano) at the Richmond-on-Thames Festival. Four years later, on 5 November 1971, with Paul Hamburger at the piano, she gave the first broadcast performance, on BBC Radio Three.

In four movements, the Sonata for Cor Anglais and Piano is one of Dodgson’s most substantial chamber works. The widely spaced cor anglais part, with its recurring repeated four-note motif in the opening Andante con moto 11 , gives it an elegiac feeling characteristic of the instrument – but the cor anglais can also be agile and Dodgson emphasises the contrast in the succeeding Vivace 12 , with headlong running quavers in both instruments, the regular 3

4 of the movement being interrupted three times by short passages of 94. The character of the eloquent short Poco adagio slow movement 13 is underlined by a framing lyrical phrase, which rises from low C to a high G and falls an octave to G. The striking Allegro non tanto finale 14 opens with a headlong, pressing rhythmic moto perpetuo, which is soon contrasted with the lyrical second subject. The interplay of these two contrasted ideas gives the cor anglais many opportunities for display.

Dodgson’s songs and other vocal works have notable personality. A wide love of poetry underpinned his word-setting. His large corpus of works for voice, often written

to commission for specific occasions, includes orchestral song-cycles and choral works, one of the most striking being a 1972 setting of the Te Deum for the 21st anniversary of the Tilford Bach Festival. Dodgson also wrote operas, among them Margaret Catchpole: Two Worlds Apart (1979) and the chamber operas Cadilly (1968) and Nancy the Waterman (2007). Characteristically, the instrumental accompaniments for his song-cycles were not always for piano but often for guitar or harp.

The Three Winter Songs for soprano with oboe and piano offer a striking example of his vocal writing. Here Dodgson takes verses from a varied trio of poets, encompassing ‘Birds in Winter’ by George Crabbe, ‘Winter the Huntsman’ by Osbert Sitwell and ‘February’, an early poem by Hilaire Belloc. The Three Winter Songs were commissioned by the soprano Juliet Clutterbuck, who performed with the pianist Lois Phillips in a partnership perhaps best known in the 1970s. The composer dated the manuscript ‘Feb/March 1972’, and Clutterbuck and Phillips gave the first performance at the Wigmore Hall on 1 November 1972, with the oboist Sara Barrington. (Clutterbuck and Phillips were later associated with Dodgson’s Ezra Pound song-cycle Tideways, although it dates from 1950.)

The mood in all three songs is set by an instrumental introduction, characterised by the distinctively expressive sound of the oboe (and piano). The Three Winter Songs are especially notable for the interesting and creative choice of poems set. Dodgson starts in the 1830s, with George Crabbe. The birds in question in Crabbe’s ‘Birds in Winter’ (actually Dodgson’s title) 15 are high-flying ducks, briefly seen in Crabbe’s depiction of the storm in his celebrated long narrative poem The Borough, long familiar to most music-lovers as the basis of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. Dodgson lightly adjusts the text to improve its suitability for singing, his insertions here being set in square brackets and his deletions struck through.

High o’er the restless deep, above the reachOf gunners’ hope, vast flocks of wild-duck stretch;Far as the eye can glance on either side.

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In a broad space and level line they glide;All in their wedge-like figures from the northDay after day, flight after flight, go forth.[Go, go forth]

In-shore their passage tribes of sea-gulls urge,And drop for prey within the sweeping surge;Oft in the rough opposing blast they flyFar back, then turn and all their force apply,While to the storm they give their weak [their weak] complaining cry;Or clap [drop] the sleek white pinion on [to] the breast,And in the restless ocean dip [dip] for rest.

Dodgson jumps to the twentieth century with Osbert Sitwell’s poem ‘Winter the Huntsman’ 16 , which first appeared in the collection Poor Young People,1 in which Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell jointly published their early poems. Two years later it made a notable appearance as No. 17 of The Poetry Bookshop’s New Broadsides, an elegantly printed single leaf with atmospheric period decorations in blue, black and red by Edward Bawden. Dodgson seizes on this atmosphere, and the oboe, almost keening, maintains the Spartan mood from the first song with only minor amendments to the words:

Through his iron gladesRides Winter the Huntsman,All colour fadesAs his horn is heard sighing.

Far through the forestHis wild hooves crash and thunder,

1 The Fleuron, London, 1925.

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In a broad space and level line they glide;All in their wedge-like figures from the northDay after day, flight after flight, go forth.[Go, go forth]

In-shore their passage tribes of sea-gulls urge,And drop for prey within the sweeping surge;Oft in the rough opposing blast they flyFar back, then turn and all their force apply,While to the storm they give their weak [their weak] complaining cry;Or clap [drop] the sleek white pinion on [to] the breast,And in the restless ocean dip [dip] for rest.

Dodgson jumps to the twentieth century with Osbert Sitwell’s poem ‘Winter the Huntsman’ 16 , which first appeared in the collection Poor Young People,1 in which Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell jointly published their early poems. Two years later it made a notable appearance as No. 17 of The Poetry Bookshop’s New Broadsides, an elegantly printed single leaf with atmospheric period decorations in blue, black and red by Edward Bawden. Dodgson seizes on this atmosphere, and the oboe, almost keening, maintains the Spartan mood from the first song with only minor amendments to the words:

Through his iron gladesRides Winter the Huntsman,All colour fadesAs his horn is heard sighing.

Far through the forestHis wild hooves crash and thunder,

1 The Fleuron, London, 1925.

Till many a mighty branchIs torn asunder.

And the red reynard creepsTo his hole near the river,The copper leaves fallAnd the bare trees shiver.

As night creeps [along] from the ground,Hides each tree from its brother,And each dying soundReveals yet another.

Is it Winter the Huntsman[Is it winter, winter the huntsman?]Who gallops through his iron glades,Cracking his cruel whipTo the gathering shades?[His cruel whip to the gathering shades]

Hilaire Belloc’s poetry and verse were largely a feature of the inter-war years, but his ‘Sonnets of the Twelve Months’ (from which Dodgson takes ‘February’ 17) first appeared in his early collection Verses and Sonnets published by Ward & Downey in London in 1896.

The winter’s moon has such a quiet car That all the winter nights are dumb with rest. She drives the gradual dark with drooping crest, And dreams go wand’ring from her drowsy star. [O do not wake] Because the nights are silent do not wake:

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But there shall tremble, [shall tremble] through the gen’ral earth, And over you, a quick’ning and a birth. The sun is near the hill-tops for your sake. The latest born of all the days shall creep To kiss the tender eyelids of the year; And you shall wake, grown young with perfect sleep, And smile at the new world, and make it dear With living murmurs more than dreams are deep. Silence is dead, my Dawn; [Silence is dead, the Morning’s here, my Dawn] The morning’s here [My Dawn].

The mood is changing, and in this third song the more overtly romantic sentiment of the poem carries Dodgson from the severe winter mood of the opening to the soprano’s ringing top A celebrating the sun, followed by the warmth of the closing greeting to the dawn.

In 1987, fifteen years after the Three Winter Songs, Dodgson wrote his Sonata for Oboe and Piano, to a commission from the oboist David Wilson, who with the pianist Alvin Moisey gave the first performance on 10 June 1987 in the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London. Here Dodgson presents a succession of very short movements: the fanfaring Intrada 1 soon leads on to the flowing Recitativo e Valse 2 . In a typical texture, the lyrical oboe song which opens the Capriccioso 3 is highlighted by the faster-flowing figuration of the piano. The Grave fourth movement 4 might be considered the slow movement of the Sonata, and the heart of the piece. It is thrown into sharp contrast by the dancing oboe of the Moto perpetuo 5 . Dodgson is in his element with this sort of headlong fast music and handles it with assurance. One has to use the word ‘plangent’ somewhere in a note on an oboe programme, and it perfectly suits the long-breathed lyrical line with which the oboe opens the closing Aria e Ciacona 6 , which is accompanied only lightly by the piano, although there are gentle piano chords to lead

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into the more active Ciacona. The oboe returns to slow music at the end, set into relief by the lightly cascading piano. The impression generated by this fifteen-minute work is of a kaleidoscope of constantly changing moods, a genuine duo sonata rather than a solo showpiece for the oboe accompanied by piano.

The harp was another of Dodgson’s instrumental specialities and in the delightful Countdown (which bears the subtitle ‘Suite for Oboe and Harp’) it naturally plays an important role in establishing the outgoing character of the music. The ‘Salute for a Royal Birthday (Counting candles)’ 7 was commissioned by Burnham Market Concerts to mark the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, on 4 August 1990, when it was introduced at a recital given by Nicholas Daniel and Ieuan Jones. Afterwards Dodgson added the other short movements (each dated September 1990), all dedicated to Daniel and Jones, to create the present four-movement work.

The birthday Salute to the Queen Mother (dated 29 June 1990) consists of 90 bars during which 90 candles are laid out and lit. The opening tempo-marking, ‘Firm and Joyful’, sets the mood. At bar 83 the oboe plays a soaring fanfare (marked ‘joyfully’ in the score) and at 87 the score notes ‘blowing the candles out ...’ and at the end Dodgson adds a couplet:

90 bars the piece do make, and 90 candles on the cake.

The engaging character of the three following movements is apparent from their opening tempo indications. In the songlike ‘Nocturne (Counting sheep)’ 8 , marked ‘serene and flowing’, the reticent harp colours the piece, complete with a delightful rising and falling glissando. It creates a perfect foil for the oboe line, ending with repeated upward harp glissandi presaging the quiet close. In the ‘Burlesque (Counting money)’ 9 – ‘Rhythmic, gleeful and mischievous’ – the harp support takes a contrasting form, with stamping chords which at the end are marked feroce. The ‘Envoi (Counting your blessings)’ 10 , to be played ‘With gentle movement; very innocently’, switches the oboe between a simple dancing movement and a more lyrical line, the harp providing a romantic colour to their singing, in music that is immediately communicative.

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Lewis Foreman has published over 30 books on music and musicians, including the standard biography of Bax, now in an expanded third edition. His authoritative booklet notes for many recording companies have a reputation of their own, and he has written programme notes for leading orchestras and ensembles, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Nash Ensemble among them. For many years he wrote music- and record-industry obituaries for The Independent newspaper.

Described by The Independent as ‘a worthy champion’ of contemporary oboe music, James Turnbull has dedicated much of his performing life to promoting and extending the oboe repertoire. James has performed frequently throughout the UK and Europe, including solo recitals at the Wigmore Hall and live broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. He has appeared as a soloist in numerous UK festivals, including Cambridge, King’s Lynn, Leicester, Machynlleth, Oxford, Ryedale, Swaledale and Thaxted. He has released solo recordings for Champs Hill Records, Quartz Music and the ABRSM, as well as featuring on a disc of Thea Musgrave’s works for Harmonia Mundi USA. Gramophone described his debut recital disc, Fierce Tears (Quartz), as ‘notable’ and it was selected as the ‘Editor’s Choice’ Recording by Classical Music magazine.

James is deeply committed to expanding the oboe repertoire. He has worked closely with Michael Berkeley, John Casken, Tansy Davies, Jonathan Dove, Thea Musgrave and John Woolrich on their compositions for oboe. In 2015 he launched the New Oboe Music Project (NewOboeMusic.org), which promotes 21st-century oboe repertoire across the world, and the Leon Goossens Prize for Emerging Composers to help encourage a new generation of composers to write for the oboe. As part of this project James has curated a collection of previously unpublished oboe repertoire in partnership with Composers Edition. He also has a keen interest in researching lost repertoire and bringing to new audiences works which have been rarely performed. In 2011 he worked closely with the late Christopher Hogwood on the preparation of a new edition of Thomas Attwood Walmisley’s Sonatinas for oboe and piano.

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Lewis Foreman has published over 30 books on music and musicians, including the standard biography of Bax, now in an expanded third edition. His authoritative booklet notes for many recording companies have a reputation of their own, and he has written programme notes for leading orchestras and ensembles, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Nash Ensemble among them. For many years he wrote music- and record-industry obituaries for The Independent newspaper.

Described by The Independent as ‘a worthy champion’ of contemporary oboe music, James Turnbull has dedicated much of his performing life to promoting and extending the oboe repertoire. James has performed frequently throughout the UK and Europe, including solo recitals at the Wigmore Hall and live broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. He has appeared as a soloist in numerous UK festivals, including Cambridge, King’s Lynn, Leicester, Machynlleth, Oxford, Ryedale, Swaledale and Thaxted. He has released solo recordings for Champs Hill Records, Quartz Music and the ABRSM, as well as featuring on a disc of Thea Musgrave’s works for Harmonia Mundi USA. Gramophone described his debut recital disc, Fierce Tears (Quartz), as ‘notable’ and it was selected as the ‘Editor’s Choice’ Recording by Classical Music magazine.

James is deeply committed to expanding the oboe repertoire. He has worked closely with Michael Berkeley, John Casken, Tansy Davies, Jonathan Dove, Thea Musgrave and John Woolrich on their compositions for oboe. In 2015 he launched the New Oboe Music Project (NewOboeMusic.org), which promotes 21st-century oboe repertoire across the world, and the Leon Goossens Prize for Emerging Composers to help encourage a new generation of composers to write for the oboe. As part of this project James has curated a collection of previously unpublished oboe repertoire in partnership with Composers Edition. He also has a keen interest in researching lost repertoire and bringing to new audiences works which have been rarely performed. In 2011 he worked closely with the late Christopher Hogwood on the preparation of a new edition of Thomas Attwood Walmisley’s Sonatinas for oboe and piano.

James is an active chamber musician and is Artistic Director of Ensemble Perpetuo. Founded in 2013, Perpetuo is a chamber-music collective specialising in multi-art form collaborations and innovative ways of performing chamber music in new contexts. James has also performed with other chamber-music ensembles, including the Berkeley Ensemble and the Allegri String Quartet.

Aside from his performing interests, James is dedicated to broadening the appeal of the oboe and encouraging young people to learn the instrument. To this end, he has launched the website LearnToPlayTheOboe.com, which now receives over a thousand new visitors every month from across the world. He also teaches at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and gives master-classes across Europe. In recognition of his work in music education, James was awarded the inaugural Patricia Prindl Prize by the Musicians’ Company in 2016.

James plays a Lorée Oboe and Cor Anglais supplied by Crowthers of Canterbury. More information about James and his playing can be found at www.james-turnbull.com.

The pianist Libby Burgess is dedicated to song and chamber music, collaborating regularly with some of the finest singers and instrumentalists of her generation. Her diverse schedule ranges from song recitals in the UK’s major concert halls and festivals to chamber music in obscure venues around the country and appearances on Radio 3. Libby is Artistic Director of New Paths, a major new festival of concerts and outreach events founded in 2016. In 2013 she established Konstellation, which presents programmes exploring the intersection of song and chamber music; this combined interest is reflected in her discography, which ranges from The English Oboe: Rediscovered with James Turnbull, released to excellent reviews by Champs Hill Records in 2013, to her most recent album, Notes from the Asylum (also from Champs Hill), featuring songs of madwomen with mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin.

Born in Sussex, Libby took a first in music at Oxford, where she was the first female organ scholar at Christ Church Cathedral, before specialising in piano accompaniment with a postgraduate scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. Here she was awarded numerous

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accompanist prizes and graduated with the DipRAM for an outstandingly high final recital mark, subsequently being awarded both the Shinn and Lucille Graham fellowships.

Libby’s passion for working with singers extends beyond the piano: she is in demand as a vocal coach, and runs opera workshops for professional singers with the director Joe Austin. She is highly regarded as a chorusmaster, in which role she collaborated with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in the premiere of his Kommilitonen!; she has also conducted operas for Ryedale Festival Opera and at Grimeborn, and is regularly invited to give choral workshops or guest-conduct choirs. Libby loves working with living composers, and has premiered a range of new music. She gives master-classes at schools and universities across the UK, and until 2015 was Head of Keyboard at Eton College.

Her website can be found at www.libbyburgess.com.

The British lyric-coloratura soprano Robyn Allegra Parton is a versatile musician and performer, described by Opera magazine as ‘stylish’, ‘dynamic’ and ‘irresistible’, and as a ‘standout’ by The Observer. In 2015, Robyn performed Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. At ease in all genres, she has since created the roles of Agnes in Nothing by David Bruce (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Peg in The Virtues of Things by Matt Rogers (Royal Opera Linbury), the Narrator in Sea-Crossed Fisherman by Michael Ellison (Istanbul Music Festival), and the title role in Coraline by Mark-Anthony Turnage (Royal Opera Linbury). Other roles include Zerbinetta in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (Longborough Festival Opera), Mercédès in Carmen (Opéra-Comique de Paris), Morgana in Handel’s Alcina (Ryedale Festival Opera) and Clelia in Reinhard Keiser’s Octavia (Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik) for which she was praised by Online Musik Magazin for her ‘clear high tones and clean, flowing coloratura’.

The ensembles with which Robyn has performed in concert include the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, as well as the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber

Orchestra, Oxford Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonie and the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded the title role in Charpentier’s Caecilia Virgo et Martyr for Novum.

Her website can be found at www.robynallegraparton.com.

Eleanor Turner is a passionate ambassador for the harp and has been performing internationally since 2008 when she won a Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists. Eleanor made her concerto debut aged fifteen, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Daniel Harding and broadcast live on Classic FM. Other highlights of Eleanor’s early career are performing chamber music in the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonie, playing solo at the Wigmore Hall and appearing as a concerto soloist in New Orleans and Sydney.

Eleanor has won various awards, including Second Prize in the 2011 Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Amsterdam and First Prize in the Cardiff European Harp Competition in 2007. Her principal tutors were Daphne Boden and Alison Nicholls; the American jazz harpist, composer and conductor Deborah Henson-Conant is an ongoing source of inspiration.

Eleanor enjoys a diverse career, including her role as harpist with folk/rock band Ranagrí, song-writing and composing, as well as improvising East-meets-West fusion music with tabla player Mendi Singh. She is Head of Harp at Birmingham Conservatoire, where she enjoys collaborating with the Integra Lab, creating electronic music using gesture-controlled software.

More information can be found at www.eleanorturner.com.

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accompanist prizes and graduated with the DipRAM for an outstandingly high final recital mark, subsequently being awarded both the Shinn and Lucille Graham fellowships.

Libby’s passion for working with singers extends beyond the piano: she is in demand as a vocal coach, and runs opera workshops for professional singers with the director Joe Austin. She is highly regarded as a chorusmaster, in which role she collaborated with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in the premiere of his Kommilitonen!; she has also conducted operas for Ryedale Festival Opera and at Grimeborn, and is regularly invited to give choral workshops or guest-conduct choirs. Libby loves working with living composers, and has premiered a range of new music. She gives master-classes at schools and universities across the UK, and until 2015 was Head of Keyboard at Eton College.

Her website can be found at www.libbyburgess.com.

The British lyric-coloratura soprano Robyn Allegra Parton is a versatile musician and performer, described by Opera magazine as ‘stylish’, ‘dynamic’ and ‘irresistible’, and as a ‘standout’ by The Observer. In 2015, Robyn performed Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. At ease in all genres, she has since created the roles of Agnes in Nothing by David Bruce (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Peg in The Virtues of Things by Matt Rogers (Royal Opera Linbury), the Narrator in Sea-Crossed Fisherman by Michael Ellison (Istanbul Music Festival), and the title role in Coraline by Mark-Anthony Turnage (Royal Opera Linbury). Other roles include Zerbinetta in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (Longborough Festival Opera), Mercédès in Carmen (Opéra-Comique de Paris), Morgana in Handel’s Alcina (Ryedale Festival Opera) and Clelia in Reinhard Keiser’s Octavia (Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik) for which she was praised by Online Musik Magazin for her ‘clear high tones and clean, flowing coloratura’.

The ensembles with which Robyn has performed in concert include the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, as well as the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber

Orchestra, Oxford Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonie and the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra. She has recorded the title role in Charpentier’s Caecilia Virgo et Martyr for Novum.

Her website can be found at www.robynallegraparton.com.

Eleanor Turner is a passionate ambassador for the harp and has been performing internationally since 2008 when she won a Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists. Eleanor made her concerto debut aged fifteen, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Daniel Harding and broadcast live on Classic FM. Other highlights of Eleanor’s early career are performing chamber music in the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonie, playing solo at the Wigmore Hall and appearing as a concerto soloist in New Orleans and Sydney.

Eleanor has won various awards, including Second Prize in the 2011 Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Amsterdam and First Prize in the Cardiff European Harp Competition in 2007. Her principal tutors were Daphne Boden and Alison Nicholls; the American jazz harpist, composer and conductor Deborah Henson-Conant is an ongoing source of inspiration.

Eleanor enjoys a diverse career, including her role as harpist with folk/rock band Ranagrí, song-writing and composing, as well as improvising East-meets-West fusion music with tabla player Mendi Singh. She is Head of Harp at Birmingham Conservatoire, where she enjoys collaborating with the Integra Lab, creating electronic music using gesture-controlled software.

More information can be found at www.eleanorturner.com.

Photo: Ivan Barra

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Recorded on 3–5 April 2017 at St John the Evangelist Church, Iffley Road, OxfordEngineer: Dave RowellProducer and editor: Matthew Bennett

Three Winter Songs No. 2, ‘Winter the Huntsman’, by Osbert Sitwell, reproduced by kind permission of Gerald Duckworth No. 3, ‘February’, by Hilaire Belloc, reproduced by kind permission of Peters, Fraser and Dunlop

Booklet text: Lewis Foreman ©Cover photograph courtesy of Jane ClarkCover design: David M. Baker (dmbaker@me.com)Typesetting and lay-out: Kerrypress, St Albans

Executive producer: Martin Anderson

© Toccata Classics, London, 2017 ℗ Toccata Classics, London, 2017

Toccata Classics CDs are available in the shops and can also be ordered from our distributors around the world, a list of whom can be found at www.toccataclassics.com. If we have no representation in your country, please contact: Toccata Classics, 16 Dalkeith Court, Vincent Street, London SW1P 4HH, UKTel: +44/0 207 821 5020 E-mail: info@toccataclassics.com